


Steel and Heart

by SoulfireInc



Category: Prodigal Son (TV 2019)
Genre: Addiction/Withdrawal, Bad Things Happen Bingo, Gen, Prodigal Whump Fic Exchange Spring 2020, Stab Wound, Whump, unusual PoV
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-01
Updated: 2020-06-01
Packaged: 2021-03-03 02:28:31
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,757
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24377257
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SoulfireInc/pseuds/SoulfireInc
Summary: Malcolm brings a profile to a knife fight. It doesn't go well. Unusual POV.For Bad Things Happen Bingo: Addiction/Withdrawal
Comments: 16
Kudos: 22
Collections: Prodigal Whump Fic Exchange - Spring 2020





	Steel and Heart

**Author's Note:**

  * For [sonshineandshowers](https://archiveofourown.org/users/sonshineandshowers/gifts).



> This is for the amazing Sonshineandshowers! Hope you enjoy (ﾉ◕ヮ◕)ﾉ*✲ﾟ*｡⋆

The holster was snug around Knife. Warmed by the presence of the Wielder. Knife knew its comrade well. They had danced together many times in training, their individual movements coalescing into one being. The speed and heat of the Wielder merged harmoniously to Knife’s resolute cool.

Knife knew its time was coming. It could feel it in the dull beat pulsing through the holster from the Wielder’s thigh. Their energy was high, excited. The air grew heavy outside, tendrils of anticipation curling through the snug plastic, a faint, unheard whistling along Knife’s waiting stillness.

Knife couldn’t hear, not in the way Wielders and Targets could, but it could feel the shape and tenor of air laced with meaning. Throughout its training, it had learned certain frequencies would herald its freedom, its razor edge eviscerating the air in a spectacle of spectral gore none else could appreciate. Others, the lower, slower wavelengths, cooled the hungry beat of Wielder’s heart, leaving Knife to seethe with unused sharpness.

Despite the many frequencies that had tumbled through the air, Knife had never been called to bleed before. It remembered blood, from the first days after being Formed, when it was trialled against flesh and sinew, tested its strength against bone. It was _delicious._ Soothing as the oil Wielder sometimes massaged into its thirsty length. Knife needed it. _Craved_ it.

The Wielder’s heart was beating loud enough for Knife to tremble slightly with every blow. There had been running. The sway and jarring of blows landed and received. Even the tiniest weight of something coppery and red, whispering past Knife, making it gleam in its cavern.

Frequencies clipped through the air. The Wielder’s were slow, warning. Aggressive. Knife knew those frequencies. Knew it would be released in moments. It tensed, relishing the sharpness of its edge, the strength of its blade.

Another wavelength wove into the air. This one was odd. Unafraid. Calm. Persuasive. The Wielder took a step back, the leg that held Knife jerking once. Retreat? No – a feint. A hot hand curled deliciously around Knife’s hilt. Fingers slid into place along the finely grooved surface, fitting more perfectly than blade into flesh. They squeezed. Knife tilted slightly in the holster, and in one fluid motion it was free, whipping upwards as the world expanded to arms, legs, the heartbeat blending into Knife’s own silent pulse. The Wielder was no longer an ally, no longer a separate being judging the worth and virtues of battle. They were one creature, one beating being of hot flesh and cold steel and waiting death. Knife sang its delight in a silent voice, relishing the deft pull of soft muscle, the solid certainty of familiar calluses.

This had been no warning move. As soon as it was free Knife and Wielder began their dance, striking with all the beauty of a clean kill. The air yielded to its edge with a tiny cry none else could hear, the gentle glow of light sweeping by in patches as they moved. Through its Wielder half Knife could feel the Target react, dancing its own ballet of frenzied retreat, the gentleness gone from its frequency, replaced with the clipped staccato of hurried air. They cut it off with one vicious slice, Knife biting through cloth and into flesh, its edge licking along an arm, releasing a rich flow of blood.

It had been too long since it felt this sanguineous touch. It soaked into Knife’s edge, the unique heat searing as it cooled in rushing air. Its blade seemed to sharpen, piqued by the tang of copper, the slick of a life Knife was born to destroy. It was _delicious._

The Target retreated, the coppery aroma dimming as though stemmed by a hand. Frequencies filled the air again, tone urgent, pleading. The Wielder shifted, uncertainty seeping into its grip and Knife spared a moment to wonder what was being said. Knife knew nothing of profiles, of the psychology of verbal weapons used to dismantle internal defences. It didn’t understand the effect twisting through the Wielder’s head, eroding it like rust. It didn’t know the fight was already lost.

The Wielder knew, and rejected it in the same moment it was accepted. The reaction was quick as a strike, though even Knife knew it was fear that fuelled its sudden charge. It felt the barest pressure as the Target attempted to bat the Wielder’s arm away, but they powered through, momentum and twin strength forcing its tip through expensive material, then skin, then muscle, its flat edge grating coarsely against bone. Blood surrounded it, racing to engulf it with a hunger Knife had never known before. It was dizzying. Overwhelming. There was no kiss of air or glow of light, only the deep, molten heat and a pulsing beat so overpoweringly loud, so belligerently strong, Knife froze.

It wasn’t sure how long it stayed there, surrounded by blazing life. Frequencies warbled feebly above it, but they meant no more than their predecessors. The Wielder’s grip sagged, losing its iron surety.

_Then it slipped away._

Icy air ravaged the raw hilt, snarling through fine grooves and stinging sweat dry. The moment the fingertips surrendered contact, Knife knew. It didn’t need the low, fearful frequency for confirmation. Didn’t need the retreating cacophony of cowardly footsteps.

It was abandoned. Alone. Lost to this inferno of life.

The world quaked. The magma around Knife rippled sickeningly as the Target fell to its knees. They teetered there a moment, an unfamiliar hand curling gently around its hilt. Then everything tilted, pitching forward until Knife’s point stilled its swaying.

The oppressive beat faltered. Slowed. The flesh around Knife heaved in time to the gasping echoing subtly around them. Knife could feel the life surrounding it waver. Organs seizing at the intrusion, blood leaking uniformly along the base of its blade. For once, it didn’t taste so sweet.

Knife had never killed before. It had been with the Wielder since it first tasted the world. They had fought many battles together but had never ended them like this. Knife, alone, mired in leaking life. It was different to how it had imagined. The well of blood was not satisfying but cloying, sticky and possessive. Staining. Digging into the microscopic grooves along its length as though bereft of its own veins and desperate to find new narrow passageways to beat through.

This was not the righteous victory that had been sung into Knife during its Sharpening. This did not marry with the tales of defending and intimidating. This was ... wrong.

The Target’s hand tightened weakly around Knife’s hilt. In another world, it could have been a Wielder’s grip. They could have been one in a dance of flashing silver, not this unnatural union of blade and flesh.

And still, the blood leaked. The gasping shallowed. The pulse weakened. The heaving grew lethargic, struggling with each pull to entice the air in.

The Target was dying. They were making frequencies sail softly through the air, the vibrations tiny and faltering.

Knife had not chosen this. This was not how it should be.

Blood oozed around Knife’s base, stealing away with the Target’s life. Knife wasn’t entirely sure how Wielders and Targets worked – they were odd, soft creatures – but the once-delectable warmth was meant to stay within the delicate holster so, steeling itself, Knife did its best to swell, to fill the hole it had mistakenly made and, perhaps, buy the Target a few more beats of that faltering heart.

The Target’s frequencies grew slower, less defined. Some bore the bite of anger, others the tremble of fear. All trace of persuasion had bled away into a silence Knife thought would fill the entire world.

It didn’t. A new frequency pounded into them from far away, this one wider, older. It drew closer, hitching higher as the rhythmic scratches of movement ceased beside them. Stronger, warmer hands appeared either side of Knife, sealing the blood against it. Frantic frequencies rumbled around them, met with a silence that was cold and still.

More arrived, Targets or Wielders, Knife had no way of knowing. None of them gripped its hilt. None of them unsheathed it from its bloody holster. Instead they moved the Target, the motion dizzying after such stillness, temperate softness replacing the burning hands around Knife. The chill of the air warmed. A sharp snap gave way to a deep rumble that roared, bustling them, with the dim heat of tired lights peering over them. The older frequency never left them, but it quieted as two sharper, decisive vibrations jabbered above Knife.

More movement. Fresher air. Harsher, more attentive light. A chaos of frequencies, calm and frenzied, bored and fearful, crashed around them until Knife was lost in the din, aware only of the subtle swaying of the Target as they were moved on something hard and smooth.

The older frequency faded. New ones appeared, tones contrastingly dispassionate, talking over them, not to them. Knife waited, tense. Sensed kin whispering nearby, clinking against a metal holster of some kind. The heart pulsing against Knife increased its pace, a shimmer of confidence whispering past the steel.

A hand curled clinically around Knife. It braced, silently lamenting being drawn, sure it would seal the Target’s fate. The hand tensed. Pulled. Knife squelched free, the air like winter fangs around it, rushing in to dry the blood dripping from its tip.

It was dropped unceremoniously into an open metal holster. The blood slipped from its blade, cooling into rock. The frequencies maintained their clipped transactions, an odd rattle droning monotonously beneath their stilted melodies.

It was another era before Knife was moved again. It expected another hand, wet fabric, a sympathetic Sharpening. Instead it was plucked from the open holster, blood ripping as they separated, and was slid into an odd new holster, this one cool and malleable and made from a plastic so thin Knife could’ve sliced it open if only someone would help. It was laid on a table. A scribbling pressure visited before vanishing. More hands, none of them familiar, none of them friendly. Eventually, Knife lay still in the sheer holster, resting against something thin and wooden. A shushing scrape shut out the light, the world tilting and rising before settling into a stubborn stillness.

There, Knife waited. Wondering if the Target had lived. If its Wielder would return for it or if the betrayal was permanent as the dried blood caked into every minute groove of its blade.

Knife didn’t like the taste of it anymore.


End file.
